Visitors to the Ordinary Monsters exhibition who RSVP online will receive a voucher that entitles them to 10% discount on the two Limited Edition prints that Salon16 is currently offering.
David Caines, The Cyclists
David Swindells: Leigh Bowery
If you print out and bring your Ordinary Monsters ticket to the exhibition, you will be able to buy either Leigh Bowery by David Swindells or The Cyclists by David Caines for the special prices of £72 and £36 respectively (10% saving).
Salon16 can now confirm that the line up for the forthcoming Ordinary Monsters exhibition at the Real World Gallery E1, 18-21 September.
David Caines will be exhibiting a selection of recent figurative paintings from his series Ordinary Monsters. These new, unsettling pictures have been described as “casting sessions for David Lynch films as yet unmade”.
Photographer Tess Hurrell will be showing previously unseen images from her Basic Needs series, which examine the magical possibilities of photography, sculptural interventions and the pleasure of everyday observations.
Alienated and forgotten communities are often the subjects of photographer Kalpesh Lathigra’s work. Kalpesh will be exhibiting photographs from his recent ‘Swimmers’ and ‘Recruits’ projects.
Photographer David Swindells has documented the social, sexual and sartorial liberties taken in nightclubs which would be frowned upon or curtailed in other social environments for over 20 years. He will be exhibiting a selection of his extraordinary archive of images.
Art critic Simone Pereira Hind has written this lovely review of SALON16 for the summer issue of local magazine N16…
Sim and Steve visit SALON16
Sim – Well here we are at David Caines’ home on Lordship Road, temporarily transformed into a new art venue and hosting the exhibition We Who Are Not as Others. Have you had a good look around?
Steve – I have. David is showing his own paintings, his brother Matthews’ Jacob Epsteinesque sculptures, and photographs by David Swindells, Tess Hurrell and Kalpesh Lathigra. The work is immaculately presented in the garden, garden studio and in parts of the house. The staging is intimate without being domestic.
Sim – What’s the title all about then? Looking around I’m struck by the idea of ‘outsiders’ in much of the work, such as in Lathigra’s photographs of Sioux Native Americans. The subjects seem alone and lost in the landscape, ironic given that they are the indigenous people. And Swindells’ photos of London clublife star larger-than-life characters like Leigh Bowery, who dare to be different. I’m particularly drawn to his YMCA-style go-go dancer print. Very sexy, but weird to think the guy is dressed as a ‘Red Indian’, given that I’ve just been looking at Lathigra’s work.
David’s work reminds me of one of my favourite films, Freaks, Tod Browning’s 1932 film set in a freak show in which he cast real sideshow performers with deformities. As well as alluding to circus perfomers David’s paintings often represent groups of seemingly disparate people; an aviator, a contortionist and a shaman for instance, who seem unaware of each other, don’t relate to one another, yet share a space on the canvas. I heard someone describe the work as poignant just now and I think that’s true.
Steve – Without wanting to get too deep, it seems like a comment on the human condition, that in the end we’re all alone.
Sim – Oy, oy Steve. Cheer up, it may never ‘appen. Come and have a look at Tess Hurrell’s work if you’re going to get all earnest on me. As well as being technically accomplished her images are truly enigmatic. In the three photos entitled Basic Needs she transforms mundane objects - wipers, a chair and an umbrella into mysterious objects of beauty and her Drawing Light No. 1 suggests the sublime in spite of its exposing its own construction. They’re beautiful.
Steve – You know, thinking about it, We Who Are Not As Others is also a reference to these artists kicking the mainstream and taking control of showing their work, rather than relying on the vagaries of the art world. It’s the enthusiasm of people like David Caines that helps guarantee a thriving art scene in spite of the much-discussed financial meltdown at our midst. I’m happy to report that this may be the first of many shows that David plans to curate in this space.
